In the wake of impending competition from NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560Ti, AMD is busy fine-tuning its performance-segment offer. It is lowering prices of Radeon HD 6950 with the introduction of a new 1 GB variant, and reportedly working on Radeon HD 6870 "Turbo" models. Combined with the two, AMD is also planning a new driver which is out and out focussed on performance enhancements for Radeon HD 6000 series GPUs.

Catalyst 11.1a Hotfix introduces performance improvements specific to Radeon HD 6800 and HD 6900 series, in turn specific to games. One can expect performance improvements of up to 35% with Anti-Aliasing in some games. Catalyst 11.1a is also going to give users full control over the way the driver handles tessellation, allowing users to override applications' tessellation settings (much like AA and AF). In the future, there's also scope for an AMD-optimised tessellation setting that adjusts tessellation detail to give the best details with minimal performance impact.

New Tessellation Controls:
The Catalyst Control Center includes an early prototype of some new tessellation controls. Our goal is to give users full control over the tessellation levels used in applications. The default selection “AMD Optimized” setting allows AMD, on a per application basis, to set the best level of tessellation. The intention is to help users get the maximum visual benefit of Tessellation, while minimizing the impact on performance. Currently no applications have been profiled, so the “AMD Optimized” setting will be non-operational until further notice.

The “Use Application Settings” option gives applications full control over the Tessellation level. Users can also manually set the maximum tessellation level used by applications with the slider control

The long term goal for the “AMD Optimized” setting is to use the Catalyst Application Profile mechanism to control the AMD recommended level of tessellation on a per application basis. AMD’s intention is to set the tessellation level such that we will not be reducing image quality in any way that would negatively impact the gaming experience.

bah, useless for HD5800 owners.. did they forget us soo soooon already??

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Unfortunately for HD5000 series owners the biggest battle for AMD right now (and into the future) is in it's 6000 series - so that must be where it throws most of it's efforts. Hopefully once the dust settles they can address their full range.

bah, useless for HD5800 owners.. did they forget us soo soooon already??

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This is a hotfix driver. It is meant to fix bugs in the drivers.

The fact this is aimed at the 6k series is because the bugs are with the 6k series - the 5k's all work fine already so we don't need anything from the hotfix (there isn't anything urgent to fix). We'll get the usual progressive updates/fixes in the WHQL driver release next week (wednesday i believe).

I have these drivers installed with my crossfire 6870's and All I can say is OpenGL in Heaven 2.1 is crap! tessilation doesnt work the graphics just look pants! it doesnt draw anything thats tesilated! im just doing benchmarks with these drivers at the minute and at best its worse!!! maybe its just my system! :S

I have these drivers installed with my crossfire 6870's and All I can say is OpenGL in Heaven 2.1 is crap! tessilation doesnt work the graphics just look pants! it doesnt draw anything thats tesilated! im just doing benchmarks with these drivers at the minute and at best its worse!!! maybe its just my system! :S

The fact this is aimed at the 6k series is because the bugs are with the 6k series - the 5k's all work fine already so we don't need anything from the hotfix (there isn't anything urgent to fix). We'll get the usual progressive updates/fixes in the WHQL driver release next week (wednesday i believe).

so you're saying basically any ati driver released from 3-4 month of now don't do performances boost at all for ATI 4xxx / 5xxx ?

that be weird cause i'm sure i gained few fps from ATI CCC 10.10 from 10.8 for Starcraft 2 and i use a ATI HD4870x2 lol even tough driver are long gone to upgrade graphic performances for 4xxx since ATI think Ebay work like a goldmine to get lost of ur card n buy new one anyway i wish ATI didn't drop Graphic Driver for Card For Specific Game Boost like Sc2 / Metro 2033 after 1 Year

IE HD5870 won't see any performances boost in the coming years but HD6870 will yet it weaker then HD5870 but cost 50$ less Consume less : and even tough it said it do better Tesselation it seem HD5870 performances will always be better then hD6870 no matter what game even if we are talking of 3-8fps difference it still here

More interested in image quality not just still frame but also movement, sometimes amd's optimizations look fine in a screen shot but flicker on the sides of objects or something else that isn't desired while under the eyes of a keen observer.